The Prisoner of Zenda - Homages

Homages

Many subsequent fictional works that feature a political decoy can be linked to The Prisoner of Zenda; indeed, this novel spawned the genre known as Ruritanian romance. What follows is a short list of those homages with a clear debt to Anthony Hope's book.

• The 1902 short story "Rupert the Resembler" is one of the so-called New Burlesques, a comedy parody by Bret Harte.
• E. Phillips Oppenheim's 1920 book The Great Impersonation (filmed in 1921, 1935 and 1942) makes use of the look-alike plot, this time between an English aristocrat and a German spy.
• 1926's The Mad King was Edgar Rice Burroughs' version of the Ruritanian romance set in Europe immediately before and during World War I, his story differs from the Hope books in a number of details, though sharing much of their basic plot.
• Dornford Yates acknowledged Hope's influence in his two novels Blood Royal (1929) and Fire Below a.k.a. By Royal Command (1930) which were set in the Ruritania-like Principality of Riechtenburg.
• The Magnificent Fraud (1939)— a Robert Florey film starring Akim Tamiroff where an American actor impersonates the assassinated president of a South American republic.
• Robert A. Heinlein adapted the Zenda plot line to his science fiction novel Double Star (1956) with great success
• The 1965 comedy film The Great Race included an extended subplot that parodies Zenda, including a climactic fencing scene between Tony Curtis and Ross Martin. In the film Tony Curtis is seen doing what is only described in the 1937 The Prisoner of Zenda; he is seen swimming the moat, scaling the tower and eliminating some guards.
• Two episodes of the spoof spy television series Get Smart, "The King Lives?" and "To *Sire With Love, Parts 1 and 2", parodied the 1937 movie version, with Don Adams affecting Ronald Colman's accent.
• The 1970 novel Royal Flash by George MacDonald Fraser purports to explain the real story behind The Prisoner of Zenda, and indeed, in an extended literary conceit, claims to be the inspiration for Hope's novel—the narrator of the memoirs, in the framing story, tells his adventures to his lawyer, Hawkins, who can be assumed to be Anthony Hope. Otto von Bismarck and other real people such as Lola Montez are involved in the plot. It was adapted as a film of the same title in 1975, directed by Richard Lester, starring Malcolm McDowell as Flashman and Oliver Reed as Bismarck.
• The Seven-Per-Cent Solution (1974) by Nicholas Meyer is a non-canonical addition to the Sherlock Holmes stories. Holmes and Watson meet Rassendyll on a train to Vienna after he has left Ruritania.
• The Doctor Who serial "The Androids of Tara" (1978) had as a working title "The Androids of Zenda" and used a similar plot and setting. It featured Tom Baker as the Doctor and Mary Tamm in four roles: Romana and Princess Strella, and android doubles of each. The 1980 novelisation was by Terrance Dicks, who was script-editor on the 1984 BBC serialisation of Zenda.
• The Zenda Vendetta (TimeWars Book 4) by Simon Hawke (1985) is a science fiction version, part of a series which pits 27th century terrorists the Timekeepers against the Time Commandos of the US Army Temporal Corps. The Timekeepers kill Rassendyll so that the Time Commando Finn Delaney is sent back to impersonate the impersonator, both to ensure that history follows its true path and to defeat the terrorists. In the finale the Time Commandos assault Zenda Castle with lasers and atomic grenades, both to rescue the king and to destroy the Timekeepers base.
• Moon over Parador (1988), adapted by Leon Capetanos and directed by Paul Mazursky. More directly a remake of The Magnificent Fraud, the story is set in Latin America with Richard Dreyfus as the President and as the actor Jack Noah, Raúl Juliá as Roberto Strausmann (the "Black Michael" character), and Sonia Braga as Madonna Mendez (the Flavia character). It is a romantic comedy.
• The 1992 Adventures in Odyssey episode "An Act of Nobility" is a whole plot reference to The Prisoner of Zenda.
• Dave, a 1993 film version adapted by Gary Ross and directed by Ivan Reitman that places the story in contemporary Washington, D.C., with Kevin Kline as the President and as his double, Frank Langella in the "Black Michael" role, and Sigourney Weaver as the modern American Flavia. Like Moon Over Parador, it is a romantic comedy.
• John Spurling's novel After Zenda (1995) is a tongue-in-cheek modern adventure in which Karl, the secret great-grandson of Rudolf Rassendyll and Queen Flavia, goes to post-Communist Ruritania, where he gets mixed up with various rebels and religious sects before ending up as constitutional monarch.
• The Prisoner of Zenda, Inc., a 1996 made-for-television version, is set in the contemporary United States and revolves around a high school boy who is the heir to a large corporation. The writer, Rodman Gregg, was inspired by the 1937 film version. It stars Jonathan Jackson, Richard Lee Jackson, William Shatner, Don S. Davis, Jay Brazeau and Katharine Isabelle.
• De speelgoedzaaier, a Spike and Suzy comic by Willy Vandersteen, is loosely based on The Prisoner of Zenda.
• Pale Fire, a 1962 novel by Vladimir Nabokov, includes Ruritanian elements in the (supposed?) life and events of the exiled king of "Zembla"
• Sherlock Holmes and the Hentzau Affair, a 2007 novel by David Stuart Davies, is a sequel that incorporates Sherlock Holmes into the plot.
• In "The Prisoner of Benda", an episode of the animated TV series Futurama, Bender impersonates (or rather, switches bodies with) the Emperor of Robo-Hungary as part of a scheme to steal the crown jewels.
• Kim Newman’s 2011 novel "Professor Moriarty: The Hound of the D'urbervilles" incorporates elements and characters from "The Prisoner of Zenda" into the chapter "A Shambles in Belgravia," an alternate version of the Sherlock Holmes story "A Scandal in Bohemia", from the perspective of Colonel Sebastian Moran.